Never had any smoke of any kind out the pipes. I know California gas is crap compared to other areas. O2 enriched crap.
The thing I think that caused the coolant leaving the radiator is it was converted to a recovery tank setup by the PO. I was recently reading that there are two types of radiator caps and the original style is not the correct one for a recovery system. I don't think the PO ever changed the cap and basically it was acting as a one way valve. It pushed out coolant and was not pulling it back in. In turn, this caused the overheating and hence damage.
At least that is a theory. Open to any and all ideas to why this occurred on such a low mileage engine.
